Low Cut Connie is headlining an inauguration party
Adam Weiner and the Philly band will headline Biden's Home State Inauguration Event on Wednesday afternoon. Trombonist Jeff Bradshaw and his band are also on the virtual bill.
President-elect Joe Biden is sharing the bill for his 2 p.m. “Home State Inauguration Event” on Wednesday with Philly rock band Low Cut Connie.
So the party faithful at the virtual ball-equivalent for Delaware and Pennsylvania Democrats will be entertained by Adam Weiner, the piano-pounding front man who is known for stripping down to his skivvies and singing “It’s Raining Men” on his Tough Cookies livestreams.
Also featured as performers are Jeff Bradshaw & the All Call Band, led by the Philly trombonist who gathered horn players at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for Black Lives Matter demonstrations in June.
How did Low Cut Connie become the headliners?
You might think it’s because of their connections to Barack Obama, who put one of the band’s songs on the first of his annual playlists. (As the most obscure act included, they got a welcome boost.) But in an interview Tuesday, Weiner said Biden hadn’t become a fan by swapping playlists with his former boss.
Instead, the Home States gig grew out of voter-mobilization initiatives Weiner got involved in this fall.
“I did this thing called Don’t Be A Schmuck, Go Vote,” says Weiner, who partnered with Rock the Vote and Headcount.org on the public service announcement urging his fans to vote. “That one really made the rounds, and the Biden people loved the commercial,” Weiner says.
Then Low Cut Connie, whose standout Private Lives double album was released in October, was asked to join other musicians and celebrities for a Pennsylvania Democrats virtual event called “A Love Letter To Pennsylvania.”
On that show — which also included the Black Eyed Peas, the O’Jays, Los Lobos, Julius Erving, and Ben Simmons, Weiner did “a fire and brimstone speech” supporting the Democratic ticket, along with his 2014 song “Boozophilia.”
On Nov. 7, the Saturday when news organizations named Biden the winner, Low Cut Connie performed a special Tough Cookies show: “We did ‘Philadelphia Freedom’ and ‘I Shall Be Released.’ It was just a big, cathartic night,” Weiner says.
Many Biden staffers tuned in. “They said, ‘We’d really love to work with you on something someday,’” Weiner says. He didn’t know what that might be until he got a call about the Home States party earlier this month.
He’ll do two songs at the ball — one original and one cover — at which Biden will deliver a virtual speech. Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Delaware Sen. Chris Coons will also appear, along with Democratic members of Congress from both states.
Fans can sign up for the free event at: hovercast.live/pa-dems/inauguration-event.
Weiner is at work on a new album and is also planning a Tough Cookies compilation album for March. Next month, a Tough Cookies partnership kicks off with Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
He said the Biden campaign hookup is another in a series of unexpected associations that have raised his profile. The New Yorker, for instance, recently named him “Pandemic Person of the Year.”
“My career trajectory has been all these great moments that have nothing to do with the music industry,” he says.
“You know, we bend over backwards to try to get on the Jimmy Fallon show or something,” Weiner says. “And then [the Biden team] reaches out and says, ‘I love your band.’ But that’s the weirdness of Low Cut Connie.”